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Starting mid-June 2021, Google is introducing Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor for sites in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).
Usually, when Google announces an update that will affect search rankings, it’s more about the content. But this update is about a better user experience (UX) of your website in terms of loading speed, stability and website interactivity/responsiveness.
Today, we’ll explain the details of Core Web Vitals to help you understand how it will affect your site’s search rankings.
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What are Core Web Vitals?
Core Web Vitals or Core Web Metrics are signals (page experience signals) that measure how good a site’s user experience (UX) is and whether it delivers the best result when users interact with it.
The main purpose of these alerts is to provide the best user experience when on the web.
What will these signals include?
This will be a combination of Google’s existing search signals such as mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS, non-intrusive interstitials (e.g., whether the site has lots of and intrusive popups that interfere with good UX), and Core Web Vitals.
The three elements of Core Web Vitals
- LCP, or Largest Contentful Paint, measures page speed in terms of the largest element that appears on the site – the largest image, video, animation or text. LCP helps to check how quickly the rendering of the largest element on the user’s screen has finished. Typically, poor LCP is affected by server response time.
- CLS or Cumulative Layout Shift measures the visual stability of a website. It checks if there are undefined images, animations and ads without dimensions. CLS also measures the loading speed of the web font and checks if the content is moving properly. This metric helps ensure that pages are as delightful as possible and don’t bother users with unexpected, confusing movements/behaviors.
- FID, or First Input Delay, measures how quickly a page interacts with users on their first impression or when they first visit the site. In other words, this metric provides information about how quickly the browser can process and deliver the result to users. FID answers the question: “Is your page responsive enough?”.
Why are Core Web Vitals important?
3 reasons why these basic web metrics are essential:
- Helps publishers (site owners) evaluate website performance;
- To provide better engagement and user experience (UX);
- Provides consistency of user web experience across devices – mobile, desktop and tablet.
How can we improve Core Web Vitals?
How to measure Core Web Vitals.
Before you test and improve your Core Web Vitals in Google Search Console, it’s important to understand how these metrics determine a good or bad user experience.
LCP: A good result would be anything less than 2.5 seconds when the page starts to load.
CLS: The score must be less than 0.1.
FID: First Input Delay should not be more than 100 milliseconds.
You can check the status of your site against Core Web Vitals by logging into Google Search Console -> Experience -> Core Web Vitals.
Alternative ways to check Core Web Vitals:
- GTmetrix
- Google Analytics (GA)
- Other Google tools include Lighthouse, PageSpeed Insights, Chrome DevTools, web.dev measurement tool, Web Vitals Chrome Extension, Chrome UX Report API.
How to improve Core Web Vitals?
LCP:
- Reduce overall page size by compressing images and using next-generation formats such as JPEG 2000, JPEG XR or WebP;
- Introduce lazyload loading for ads and photos;
- Use CDN for the images.
Learn more about How to speed up WordPress – two important things.
CLS:
Yoast emphasizes, “Optimizing CLS won’t necessarily make the page faster, but it certainly makes it feel faster.”
- Set correct dimensions for images in CSS, ads and embedded elements (appropriate width and height):
Learn more about.
FID:
- Use browser-supported fonts;
- Reduce JavaScript (JS) execution time by minimizing and deferring unused JS.
You can read more testimonials from industry experts here.
Learn more about: 5 common reasons why WordPress is slow.
Final words
Core Web Vitals or Core Web Metrics as a ranking factor starts June 2021, we highly recommend you take your time and start improving your website performance to avoid unexpected surprises in your website ranking. These Google updates aim to provide a better web experience for everyone.
Use what you’ve learned here – take a look at Google Search Console or use the alternative tools mentioned above – they’ll help you find mistakes faster so you can fix them and ensure good SERP performance.
If you are having difficulties with Core Web VItals you can always contact us for assistance and improved results.
